Lakewood State of the City Address: "Our Strength Is Our Residents"

LAKEWOOD, OH - Mayor Michael Summers delivered the 2017 State of the City address on March 15. He stood in the revamped City Council chambers and painted a mostly positive picture of the city's financial and infrastructure conditions.

He noted that unlike other cities throughout Cuyahoga County, Lakewood's economic base is not dependent on one or two large corporations, or even a handful of businesses. Instead, the city is most dependent on the financial well-being of its residents.

Summers demonstrated Lakewood's dependence on its residents via a chart that showed the explosive growth of residential income among Lakewooders. Over the past five years, Lakewood has also paid close attention to the headcount of municipal employees. The city has remained fairly steady at 2011 levels, allowing Lakewood to better control its costs.

Since 2011 several cities surrounding Lakewood have been forced to increase their income tax rate to makeup for lost state revenue, Summers said. Lakewood has managed to avoid such an increase. "We've taken many other approaches to address these same pressures," he said.

Those alternative tactics have included increasing the financial base on which the income tax is applied, thus preventing an immediate need to increase the remaining base. Summers said the city has no plans to raise taxes or add a refuse fee, tactics adopted by nearby municipalities.

However, not everything is sunny in Lakewood.

"But I am worried. I'm worried about a federal government that talks pretty liberally today about diminishing their support for Medicaid and in Ohio we know that could cost billions to the state government. And those billions in lost revenue will ripple down and effect us locally," Summers said.

Federal funding isn't the only broad concern for the Lakewood mayor. He's also concerned with loss of state block grants. He added that the Local Government Fund, which provides about $1.5 million in revenue to Lakewood, could be at risk under Kasich's budget proposal. He said that Lakewood and cities across Ohio are lobbying to protect what remains of the Local Government Fund.

Overall, Summers believes that up to $3 million in state and federal funding could be at stake under Governor John Kasich's latest budget proposal.

And while the city's income taxes haven't increased in several years, Lakewood does have a higher regional property tax bill, on average, than the county-wide median property tax bill. Lakewood's regional tax bill is $4,100, while the county-wide median property tax bill is $3,873.

Residents are also seeing increases in their sewer rates. The reason for those increases is a variety of infrastructure improvement projects designed to keep Lakewood in-line with EPA clean water regulations and to prevent storm overflow. So far, the city has dodged coming under a consent decree, but that is mostly because of good-faith investments in the sewers, Summers said.

Other Highlights

Summers' speech covered a variety of issues in Lakewood in a relatively concise amount of time. Here were some of the highlights.

The city has repaired nearly 71 miles of sidewalk. Summers touted this as supporting Lakewood's walkability.

This year, the city is upgrading its enterprise software which governs the police record keeping system.

"We will leverage this effort to review and streamline hundreds of different processes," Summer said.

He also said the city has expanded its public surveillance system, placing more cameras throughout Lakewood. He believes the cameras will aid in investigations and serve as a type of crime deterrent.

Speaking of crime, one of the most pervasisve and damaging trends in Northeast Ohio is the herion epidemic. Lakewood, as an inner-ring suburb, has been hit particularly had. Summers said that several local departments, including the police, fire department, and human services, are working together to devise a unique strategy of combatting addiction.

Namely, the groups want to create a post-overdose program that will offer addicts a way out. They believe that the post-overdose period may be the window of opportunity to combat addiction.

Housing Forward

After citing the city's residents as Lakewood's most important economic engine, Summers discussed the Housing Forward initiative, which seeks to improve the value of local homes. He said the inspection criteria for houses has been raised and 1,200 additional houses have been selected for additional attention to improvement.

"Our housing values though still below the 2006 high watermark, are still recovering faster than 90 percent of the county. It's essential that we stay riveted on this important element, housing quality," he said.

You can watch the entire State of the City address below.

Photo from Rick Uldricks, Patch